Ambulances at Car Wash

[ProfessorMoody]

I took my car to a hand car wash today, as I'm disabled and can't do it myself. I sat in the sun as some lovely fellas washed, polished and hoovered my car til it shone.

While I was waiting for the hoovering, four ambulances came through the car wash bit and were hand-washed.

AIBU in wondering why they'd have to come to a hand car wash and pay to get their vehicles washed? DH thinks they have to look after their own ambulances, meaning they'd have to pay out of their own pockets (a tenner a vehicle). Are there no washing facilities at ambulance stations? Is this something else that isn't funded when it should be?

Hopefully I can stop quietly fuming if someone tells me the government picks up the bill.

DBro is a paramedic, I'm tempted to text and ask if he washes his own ambulance.

(I know they hide packets of crisps in the drawers for when they dont get time for lunch)

The trust I work for covers a large geographical area both heavily populated cities and fairly rural towns. In the cities we tend to have large hubs now rather than smaller stations. Each hub has a team of vehicle preparation operatives (not paramedics/clinically trained staff) these folks are responsible for stocking the ambulances and keeping them road worthy. All lights sirens and markings must be visible to the public so cleaning the vehicle is a regular occurrence... generally at staff change over or on the odd occasion that we're lucky enough to have enough vehicles available to schedule the preparation between shifts by using alternative vehicles.
However some of the smaller rural stations do still exist and the clinical staff are expected to maintain similarstandards. They're usually given around 20 minutes at the start of their shift to prep the vehicle, and it's rostered for them to be cleaned regularly. It can make no financial sense to employ non clinical staff to look after maybe just 3 vehicles, or provide the washing facilities, so they have contracts with local car washes to undertake this.

The paramedics are certainly reimbursed, it does not come out of their own pocket.

@cyw... you are entitled to a 2nd break?... we struggle to return our resources for the 1 break in their 12 hour shift, it'd be almost impossible to squeeze in 2! Are all breaks on station or does your trust give them out and about/at facilitated posts?

Sorry Op. You've asked an interesting question and people are nit picking over irrelevant stuff. Unfortunately it happens on occasion on MN.

I'm not in the UK, so don't know how it works there, but I was once in washing my car and an ambulance pulled in and got put into the wash bay. I made a similar comment about them being expected to wash their own vehicles and they said that they normally get done at base, but they'd been to a call out with a chemical spill so they had to wash it down before they could go to another job.

They may not have been ambulances from an NHS trust, they could have been a private company. They subcontract out and are paid by companies to provide medical cover at events and don't have anything to do with the NHS.